Cultural orientations and information systems success in public and private hospitals: preliminary evidences from Italy

Abstract Background The effective adoption and use of digital and computerized systems and records in hospitals are crucial for increasing the overall quality, safety and outcomes of any national health community. Prior research found that hospitals’ dominant cultural orientation affects the adoption of new technology. However, the organizational culture of hospitals can greatly vary between public and private hospitals. Thus, the ownership type of the hospital is likely to affect, to some extent, the aforementioned relationship between culture and information system success. The present article focuses in detail on this issue and attempts to answer the following research question: which cultural orientations are promoting information system success in public and private hospitals? Methods The authors develop and test two hypotheses about this relationship via two regression approaches (single-level and multi-level). The authors collected data from 172 respondents—clinicians and non-clinicians—working in two (one public and one private) hospitals in Campania, one of the largest regions in Italy. Results The findings of this study show clear differences between private and public hospitals. First, a dominant cultural orientation that emphasizes flexibility values (clan and adhocracy cultures) positively influences information systems success in terms of individual impact. Second, the influence of a clan orientation on individual impact is stronger in the public hospital. Third, the influence of an adhocracy orientation is stronger in the private hospital. Overall, the type of ownership—either public or private—of these healthcare organizations affects the link between cultural orientations and IS success. Conclusion Managers of private hospitals should offer to their employees the opportunity to adopt and implement new information systems processes driven by openness towards the external environment in order to benchmark and learn from what was done previously in other organizations. Managers of public hospitals should set up human resource management practices, knowledge creation mechanisms, and internal communication capable of generating a friendly learning environment for their employees when adopting new technology

Cardiovascular Efficacy and Safety of Bococizumab in High-Risk Patients

Bococizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody that inhibits proprotein convertase subtilisin- kexin type 9 (PCSK9) and reduces levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. We sought to evaluate the efficacy of bococizumab in patients at high cardiovascular risk. METHODS In two parallel, multinational trials with different entry criteria for LDL cholesterol levels, we randomly assigned the 27,438 patients in the combined trials to receive bococizumab (at a dose of 150 mg) subcutaneously every 2 weeks or placebo. The primary end point was nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, hospitalization for unstable angina requiring urgent revascularization, or cardiovascular death; 93% of the patients were receiving statin therapy at baseline. The trials were stopped early after the sponsor elected to discontinue the development of bococizumab owing in part to the development of high rates of antidrug antibodies, as seen in data from other studies in the program. The median follow-up was 10 months. RESULTS At 14 weeks, patients in the combined trials had a mean change from baseline in LDL cholesterol levels of -56.0% in the bococizumab group and +2.9% in the placebo group, for a between-group difference of -59.0 percentage points (P<0.001) and a median reduction from baseline of 64.2% (P<0.001). In the lower-risk, shorter-duration trial (in which the patients had a baseline LDL cholesterol level of ≥70 mg per deciliter [1.8 mmol per liter] and the median follow-up was 7 months), major cardiovascular events occurred in 173 patients each in the bococizumab group and the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.99; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 to 1.22; P = 0.94). In the higher-risk, longer-duration trial (in which the patients had a baseline LDL cholesterol level of ≥100 mg per deciliter [2.6 mmol per liter] and the median follow-up was 12 months), major cardiovascular events occurred in 179 and 224 patients, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.65 to 0.97; P = 0.02). The hazard ratio for the primary end point in the combined trials was 0.88 (95% CI, 0.76 to 1.02; P = 0.08). Injection-site reactions were more common in the bococizumab group than in the placebo group (10.4% vs. 1.3%, P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS In two randomized trials comparing the PCSK9 inhibitor bococizumab with placebo, bococizumab had no benefit with respect to major adverse cardiovascular events in the trial involving lower-risk patients but did have a significant benefit in the trial involving higher-risk patients